Randy Richmond: Verisimilitude

About

Verisimilitude features a series of 10 large-format photographs inspired by Western art historical tradition. In these stunning works, Quad City artist and photographer Randy Richmond combines aspects of the still life or nature morte paintings of the Northern Renaissance with the dramatic lighting found in Neoclassical portraiture of the 18th and early 19th centuries and the soft focus of Pictorialist photography of the early 20th century.

The subjects of Richmond's photographs are careful arrangements of found objects combined with taxidermy animals or mounts from the collections of St. Ambrose University and the Nature Center at Nahant Marsh. Utilizing characteristics of the three art historical movements, Richmond blends the objects, animals and influences into story-filled images.

Unlike works created in the studio of a 16th-century Dutch painter, Richmond's arrangements are set outdoors. The mysterious and compelling works that result provide hints of the life lessons of the beauty and fragility of the natural world and the specter of its eventual demise.